- FLOX wins two public procurement pilot projects funded by the Swedish Board of Agriculture
- Aims to verify its technology at scale during 2022 – 2024 in broad collaboration with Swedish stakeholders within agriculture
STOCKHOLM, Sweden – Oct. 11, 2022 (PRESS RELEASE) – The Swedish impact startup FLOX announced a new milestone in the form of a grant of two public procurement pilot projects granted by the Swedish Board of Agriculture. The projects combined have a granted budget of 5 million SEK, out of which around half of the sum is granted directly to FLOX in order to verify its technology in two parallel projects conducted in close collaboration with leading associations and experts.
The Swedish Board of Agriculture recently procured projects that can develop new methods to prevent wildlife damage to crops. This is against the background that wildlife damage to crops has doubled since 2014, and today poses a serious threat to the profitability of Swedish primary producers.
The two collaboration projects aim to verify the FLOX technology at scale, targeting various wildlife species and geographical areas. The first pilot project is led by Flox, and targets wild boar and deer damages in the SouthEast of Sweden together with, amongst others, experts from the Swedish Agricultural University measuring effects on wildlife and the Swedish Hunters’ Association examining how to use and apply the wildlife data acquired by Flox to better understand and manage wildlife populations at scale. The second project is led by Hushålningssällskapet in Halland, and targets prevention of bird damages in the Halland region, connection to damage compensation schemes, and methods measuring the damage levels.
“Sweden’s Riksdag has decided that food production should increase, which is becoming increasingly important for Sweden and the rest of the world – and wildlife damage affects this development. The problem with wildlife damage continues to increase as many bird species have increased sharply in Sweden in recent decades, for example geese. As the number of birds increases and new areas are used for foraging, the need for new ways to prevent game damage increases. This leads to increased costs for damage prevention measures and a need to be able to demonstrate game damage in order to receive financial compensation. Hushållningssällskapet in Halland aims to, together with FLOX, find ways to reduce wildlife damage from birds and how the damage can be documented and prevented, with the support of drone technology.” says Håkan Cajander, Senior Project Manager at Hushållningssällskapet and project leader of one of the projects FLOX is involved in.
Håkan Cajander, Senior Project Manager at Hushållningssällskapet
”We humans share the earth with many other species that are of great importance to our survival and well-being. If we want to protect this biological diversity, we must learn to live together with it and share both space and time with other species. Developing non-invasive, non-lethal methods that help reduce conflicts between wildlife and our needs is an important task for applied research. In this project, we combine modern technology with natural measures (nature-based solutions) – and it is a very exciting challenge with great potential.” says Andreas Seiler, senior researcher at SLU.
“Wildlife and wildlife-related damage to crops is in many places the subject of major conflicts, and finding new methods to reduce wildlife damage levels is therefore very important to be able to manage these conflicts. We therefore hope that the technology offered by FLOX can be validated and succeed in this. We are therefore happy that, through this procurement, we are able to collaborate with FLOX where the technology is validated by SLU and we can look at how the data collected can be used in wildlife management and in our organization.” says Filip Ånostam, responsible for digital wildlife monitoring at the Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management.
Filip Ånostam, responsible for digital wildlife monitoring at the Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management
“This is a huge milestone for us, and a great opportunity for tight collaboration with a variety of stakeholders engaged in wildlife management in Sweden. By the end of the projects in late 2024, we aim to have validated our technology by third parties at scale, including its effects on various wildlife species and our climate impacts in connection to maximized crop production.”, says Sara Nozkova, CEO & Co-founder of FLOX.
About The Funding Authority
- The Swedish Board of Agriculture (Jordbruksverket) is Sweden’s administrative authority in agriculture, fisheries and rural areas. They work to ensure that Sweden produces food in a sustainable and profitable way. They also contribute to good animal welfare throughout Sweden and a vibrant countryside.
About the Collaboration Partners
- Hushållningssällskapet is a national body made up of 15 independent Rural Economy and Agricultural Societies across Sweden.
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) develops the understanding and sustainable use and management of biological natural resources.
- SLU Wildlife Damage Center (VSC) is a national center for knowledge about wildlife, wildlife damage and society.
- Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management (Svenska Jägarförbundet) works with hunting and game conservation and has about 150.000 members spread out over the whole country.
- Reference groups also include stakeholders such as the Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF) in Stockholm and Halland, Lantmännen, Halland region, and Länstyrelsen in Halland.
The FLOX’s Mission – Coexistence with Wildlife. Reimagined.
FLOX is turning what was previously a human-wildlife conflict to a new way of managing and protecting natural resources in shared landscapes such as agricultural, young forests, reforestation areas, and infrastructure, in turn preventing agricultural expansion into natural wildlife habitats and avoiding collisions with wildlife.
About FLOX
FLOX is a Stockholm-based startup on a mission to reimagine coexistence with wildlife, with the aim to offer affordable tailor-made services provided by autonomous drones to protect crops and young plants from wildlife-related damages.
